Hon. James H. Cartwright, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois, who will speak of Lincoln the Lawyer.

JUDGE CARTWRIGHT

Lincoln, the Lawyer

At the memorial services held in the Supreme Court of this state soon after the death of Abraham Lincoln, resolutions of the bar expressive of the great loss to the profession, were presented by John D. Caton, a former Chief Justice of the court; and in adding his words of appreciation he said that the pleasing task of speaking of Mr. Lincoln as the chosen ruler of the nation must be left to others; and while peers sang his praises and orators proclaimed his greatness as a public man, it was becoming that his professional brethren should speak of him as a lawyer. Mr. Justice Breese in responding for the court echoed the sentiment. The years that have passed since that time have not dimmed the fame of the great President, but have added the love, respect and admiration of the southern people, then embittered by the war which had destroyed their industrial system, set aside their social order, and wrought devastation among them. That people have long since recognized that he was their best and truest friend; and today North and South hold in the same high esteem the man of humble birth, noble life and tragic death. The people today are listening to orators who recount the events of his life, extol his virtues and proclaim his greatness in the high office which he filled; and again it may be said that it becomes us who are members of the profession which he practiced during nearly all the years of his manhood to speak of him as Lincoln the lawyer.

For nearly thirty years he was a member of the bar of the Supreme Court and for about a quarter of a century he was engaged in the active practice of his profession in that court and the trial court. He had a natural love of justice and it was his early ambition to be a lawyer. That ambition was realized by perseverance in the face of poverty and many difficulties. His devotion to the law and reverence for its principles, at that time, were illustrated by an address delivered at Springfield, in 1837, in which he exhorted his hearers never to violate, in the least particular, the laws of the country and never to tolerate their violation by others. He believed that respect for the law should be inculcated among the people, and said "Let reverence for the law be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be written in primers, spelling books and almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice. In short, let it become the political religion of the United States."

Law books were then few in number but they contained the fundamental rules under which justice has been and is administered. Practically his whole education derived from books was acquired in the study of the law and that study moulded his intellect and character and gave color to all his thoughts. He learned the principles of the law and his great common sense enabled him to apply them to different conditions. His ability, integrity and devotion to law and justice soon won for him an exalted position at the bar. To have succeeded in an unworthy cause would have given him neither pleasure nor pride, and his success was founded, not upon tricks and devices to defeat the law, but in truth and honesty in upholding the law as he understood it.

He was lured from the practice of law to political life for a short time, but left Congress in much dissatisfaction to resume the profession which he loved. In the friendly contests of the bar he met men of great ability and learning who called forth his greatest efforts; and it was these contests that developed his growing powers. When he was again summoned to the political field by what he believed to be a great wrong, he stepped into the arena fully equipped by experience at the bar to meet and overthrow his great antagonist. Victor in that contest, although lacking the rewards of victory, he returned to the law office in Springfield and to the practice of the law. From that office he went directly to the highest position in the nation and assumed the greatest burdens ever laid upon the shoulders of an American citizen. He had then received an education at the bar such as no university could have given him.

He looked upon the crisis which confronted the nation with the eye and from the standpoint of the lawyer. His first inaugural address which closed with the oft-quoted and touching appeal to his dissatisfied fellow-countrymen was, in its substance, a legal argument. He said that he had no